1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data transfer or migration between source and destination storage drives and, more particularly, to manners of transferring or migrating data between source and destination storage drives with reduced network bandwidth requirements.
2. Relevant Background
Long term data storage has traditionally involved use of one or more storage tiers of tape drives due to the favorable unit cost and long archival stability of magnetic tape. For example, tape libraries typically store and index a plurality of tape cartridges and include a specialized robotic mechanism that appropriately moves requested tape cartridges between storage locations and tape drives as well as between tape drives. A library manager implemented on a server in communication with the tape library administers data requests within the tape library.
Users often desire to move (e.g., migrate) and/or copy data from tape cartridges of one or more tape drives to tape cartridges of one or more other tape drives for a number of reasons. As an example, an enterprise may desire to maintain off-site copies of all (e.g., or at least critical) enterprise data as part of any appropriate disaster recovery protocols or the like. For instance, any such enterprise data may be replicated (e.g., copied) from tape cartridges of one or more tape drives at a production site to tape cartridges of one or more tape drives at a disaster recovery site (e.g., geographically remote from the production site). As another example, users often desire to move their data from older tape cartridges on older tape drive technology to newer tape cartridges on newer tape drive technology.